See, now that's just cool. We don't get that kind of freestanding tower around here. Neither do I live in Tahoe, like Gumby. So I'm out 4x4ing through the desert, hunting chukar, elk, fishing and poking around the old mines and ghost towns.

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If I can just learn how to climb this junk volcanic flakey biscuit crap, you guys might get a trip report out of me. And a few new top-rope-able routes in the 5.3-5.7 sorta range. 4x4 required ha ha ha.

Rockhounding? Lots of that! Found a few rattlers, but left them alone. Old mines abound. Never can tell really what they were after at the random places, but there are some good references.

Mouse, have you climbed there? Looks like an incredible place.

Sometimes its hard to leave these places, but work is a necessity. So i take a picture or two and file it away in the category of places-to-go-back. Someday. Some go with the category of if-i-was-braver, like wanting to go underground.

Lots of these spires, walls, and summits are best appreciated through binoculars. It wasn't that the past generations didn't find them, they knew better than to fool with them.

The old mines are such a cornucopia of danger, I tread lightly. I've walked back in a few, but mostly I just poke around the outside and look at the old buildings. There's so many ways to buy the farm around these f'ing things, it's not even funny.

Not too long ago, some girls were killed while out riding quads with their family near here. An old shaft from the early 1900's had been partially covered by time and debris, and wasn't significant enough to be on any maps.
Periodically explosives of various makes and vintages will show up at the Sheriff's Office or Police Department. People will find det cord, blasting caps, sometimes old sweaty dynamite...
I have walked back a couple adits (horizontal tunnels), and one had a shaft in the floor that went way down. Most mines around here are big shafts that go down hundreds of feet. Some have been surrounded with wire, some barred over, a few are wide open.